


If They're Out of Lifejackets, Grab a Friend

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: 3x09 Tag, 3x11 Fic, 3x13 Fic, And Both Also Pining After Lucy, And They Know That About Each Other, Bisexual Garcia Flynn, Bisexual Wyatt Logan, Bittersweet Ending, First Time, Flynn and Wyatt are in Love with Lucy, Frottage, Let Yourself Fall in Love with Flynn Wyatt It's Okay, M/M, Messy Messy Idiots in Love, Shower Sex, Sort of Garcyatt, The Boys Caught Feelings When They Weren't Looking, They Do Not Like It, Timeless Season 3 Project, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis, You Know You WANT To, it's all just a mess, mentioned Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-21 22:03:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17650721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: Wyatt has a question about some of the things Flynn said while they were at Stonewall. And both of them are a little tired of feeling alone.





	1. The Stonewall Riots

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing Flynn said in that episode was straight. Not one damn thing.

It’s been an interesting day for everyone.

Jiya has been sticking to Lucy like glue since they got back, and Lucy doesn’t seem to mind although she’s not speaking much, just letting Jiya spoil her rotten (Flynn was not aware they even had ice cream in this godforsaken place and yet, Jiya has acquired some for Lucy and Lucy alone) as the two women hole up in Lucy’s bedroom.

Rufus seems just as confused and also slightly like a dog that’s been left out in the rain when he realizes the possibility of Jiya coming back to their room for bed is around zero.

Flynn’s pretty sure Denise goes into Lucy’s room too for about an hour.

He’s kind of wondering if he should knock and ask if everything’s all right and what the hell happened while he was getting himself chained up in a warehouse, but then he goes into the living room and sees Wyatt is also in an interesting mood.

If the fact that Wyatt is staring at a full beer bottle on the table like he’s scared of it biting him is any indication.

“Hey…” Flynn isn’t sure if he should take the bottle away or not. “You all good there?”

Wyatt picks at the beer label and still doesn’t take a drink. It’s like he’s daring himself to get drunk and he just can’t manage it. “When you said you lost him anyway, what did that mean?”

Flynn’s stomach tightens, twists. Lorena and Iris are the deepest scars. The worst. The most recent.

But they’re not the only ones that carved into his heart.

“Careful,” Flynn warns. “I show you mine, I’m going to have to ask that you show me yours.”

Wyatt snorts. “Do you have to make everything into an innuendo?”

He kind of can’t help it around Wyatt. With Lucy he’s careful, he tiptoes, because he can see she’s cracking and because he will never do anything to hurt her or make her uncomfortable. With Wyatt he pushes, he pokes, he wants to watch him stumble off balance.

“Maybe.” Flynn flips a chair around, straddles the back of it. “I am serious, though. You can’t ask people to share without sharing yourself.”

Wyatt manages to peel half the label off the beer. He’s carefully not looking Flynn in the eye. “Okay. Um. So maybe I should share first?”

That’s a surprise. Flynn makes a _go on_ gesture, sweeping his hand to the side like when he offers for Lucy to walk in front of him.

Wyatt swallows. He’s shredding the beer label in front of him to absolute bits. “So you said a lot of things today. And I’m not—I probably sound like I’m stereotyping and if I am you can clock me for it but I just, I wanted to know, are you… if you’re… are you not… straight?”

Flynn had honestly not expected that question from Wyatt of all people. Wyatt seems to swing back and forth between being freakishly observant and more oblivious than a fence post. He’d thought that if anyone would notice it would be Jiya, since Lucy was too wrapped up in her own thoughts and Jiya seems to make an Olympic sport out of observing things about people they don’t want her to see.

He breathes out slowly. “No. I’m not.”

“So the guy. He was your… your guy.” Wyatt’s still not looking at him.

“If you’d like to put it that way, yes.”

Wyatt’s quiet for a few long moments. When he speaks, it’s a mumble. “My dad was a foreman. Before the drinking got so bad he lost the job. He caught one of his men at the bar toilet one night with some guy. Hit him so hard he broke the guy’s jaw. He’s dead now. My dad, I mean. But when I—when I feel—it still feels like any second he’s gonna show up and ask who the hell I think I’m looking at.”

Flynn’s quiet, just nodding along to show he’s listening.

“In case you wondered why I was an extra dick to you.” Wyatt finally looks at him then, and the hurt and fear and desire in there makes Flynn’s entire body ache.

“I’m sorry.” Not for being an object of desire. Flynn can’t help that. But… “For today. It must’ve been hard for you.”

Wyatt shrugs and somehow manages to lace the movement with bitterness. “Not your fault. None of this was your fault, it was all… me not managing my romantic shit. With Jess, with Lucy, with you. It just…” Wyatt looks away again. “It hurts y’know when you hate yourself for being attracted to someone and knowing you want that someone and they’re never gonna want you back. And then it gets worse because he’s in love with the woman you’re in love with and you can’t be mad at him but you want to be.”

Flynn knows this is a bad idea. A phenomenally bad idea. But he’s lonely, and he loves Lucy but he also sees the edge of the cliff she’s teetering on and he won’t be the one to push her off, no matter how much she seems to want him to do that, and Wyatt is—maybe Wyatt thinks Flynn doesn’t want him and there have definitely been a number of times where Flynn has wanted to strangle the guy, but Flynn does. Flynn has. He remembers thinking the first time he got a good look at Wyatt that the guy was too damn pretty for his own good. Or for Flynn’s.

“You ever actually been with a man?” Flynn asks.

Wyatt seems startled by the question, his eyes going a little wide and his face getting just the faintest bit pink. “Couple fumbles in the army. We were always drunk and it never went below the belt.”

Flynn runs his tongue along his bottom lip. Wyatt’s eyes track the movement like he can’t fucking help himself, and doesn’t that do things to Flynn’s blood.

He still remembers Wyatt’s tired, triumphant grin when he fought his way through the warehouse and saw Flynn.

“Would you like to be?”

Wyatt flushes properly this time. “I’m not a pity fuck.”

“Wyatt. Life isn’t a war. Stop treating it like one.” Flynn reaches out, hardly daring to breathe as he brushes his fingertips along Wyatt’s hair where it’s flopping over his forehead. “I didn’t think you’d actually notice or care. But you’d be surprised how often I was in fact kind of flirting with you.”

“Kind of?”

“Enough to make it real if you wanted to be.” It’s the age-old dance of the non-straights: _I’m only flirting with you if you want me to be_. Otherwise it’s a joke, a misinterpretation, hidden beneath a laugh and a glance away, sliding back onto safe territory to avoid being shut out or, worse, attacked.

“I love Lucy,” Wyatt blurts out.

“I know. I’m not expecting anything.” Just something to keep them both from staring up into the darkness all night. After spending a month in a tiny cabin with the guy, Flynn knows that Wyatt has a habit of counting the cracks in the ceiling same as him.

He dares to move his fingers down, down, until he’s cupping Wyatt’s cheek. “We’re just two people who have a mutual attraction, who can’t be with the person we want, who need someone…” He pauses, then dares to let the final truth slip out. “Who need to remind each other it’s okay to be like this.”

Wyatt looks like he needs that, like he needs someone to tell him _you’re not broken, you’re not wrong, it’s okay, you’re okay._ Wyatt will never be like Johnson or many of the others at Stonewall. Some of his annoyingly heteronormative Americana behavior is an act but some of it is genuine. Wyatt likes muscle cars, he likes women, he likes action films and could care less about clothes. And Flynn knows that sometimes it’s easier when you fit the stereotype because at least then you have less explaining to do to the world.

And if he’s being honest, Flynn needs it too.

Wyatt looks like Flynn’s asking him to step out onto a rickety bridge and promising him it’ll hold. “You sure?”

The corner of Flynn’s mouth twitches upwards. “Why, you scared you’re going to break my heart, Logan?”

Wyatt has indeed broken at least two hearts that Flynn knows of, but a heartbreaker in the player sense of the word, he is most definitely not. And Flynn has no intention of uselessly pining after two people when he’s managing to dash himself on the rocks of Lucy’s indifference already, thanks.

He’s never been one for casual sex but romance aside. This isn’t casual.

And it’s something, he’s realizing, he needs.

Wyatt cracks a smile at the quip. “Then… show me what to do?”

If he was this soft all the time, Flynn might actually consider Wyatt a close friend instead of just a sort-of-work-friend-person-he-doesn’t-want-to-strangle-as-much-as-he-used-to. “Well, first…”

He leans in slowly, giving Wyatt plenty of time to figure out what’s coming, and presses their lips together, slow, soft.

Wyatt makes the tiniest startled noise, and then a small sigh as Flynn kisses him again, feels the stubble from Wyatt’s perpetual five o’clock shadow, and that’s when he thinks—oh. He might actually be in trouble.

 

* * *

 

Kissing Jess has always been like sinking into the ocean. It’s deep and familiar and terrifying at the same time.

Kissing Lucy is like fireworks, it’s sparking and excitement and champagne bubbles and colors exploding behind his eyes.

Kissing Flynn is like dynamite.

It blows him sideways, knocks him flat, even though they started out soft—so soft Wyatt could hear his fingers shaking as they grabbed onto Flynn’s shirt—and his ears are ringing and he doesn’t know which end is up and he swears his chest has been blown wide open.

They’re in Wyatt’s room and he’s not sure how they ended up here from the kitchen, just knows Flynn’s pinning him down the mattress, between his thighs, and Wyatt is certain his heart will stop if Flynn moves away and stops touching him.

He’s not exactly sure how this happened. Well, he is, he remembers every moment of their conversation with frozen, crystalline clarity, but… look, he’s well aware of where he falls on the scale, here. If the scale is one to ten, Flynn’s a twenty. And Wyatt has always known he’s hovering somewhere around a six or a seven. He’s attractive enough until someone truly sexy walks into the room. He’s got that good boy homegrown look to him, that nonthreatening kind of pretty that people like, but he’s generic store brand, he’s chocolate chip and Flynn’s motherfucking salted caramel or whatever the intensely popular flavor of the year is.

So the fact that Flynn’s enthusiastically kissing the life out of him is kind of a mystery.

But hey, as previously stated, he’s not gonna stop it.

Flynn scrapes his teeth over Wyatt’s jaw and Wyatt feels his stomach go supernova, melting in two seconds flat, and he arches up into Flynn’s hips, feels that Flynn’s hard, straining his jeans and oh fuck, Wyatt’s cock fucking jerks at the thought of all that against him, maybe even _in_ him…

“Slow down, cowboy,” Flynn murmurs. He grabs Wyatt’s wrists, eases Wyatt’s grip off Flynn’s back, tangling their fingers and pressing Wyatt’s hands into the mattress. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Wyatt thinks he’s going to vibrate out of his skin at any moment and Flynn wants him to _slow down_?

Flynn lets go of one of Wyatt’s hands, pushing Wyatt’s shirt up, skimming his fingers over Wyatt’s heaving chest. Wyatt lets out a whine that has his whole face heating up. He’s so turned on, he’s scared one stroke of his cock will have him coming, and he’d be embarrassed about it but Flynn’s eyes look like two black holes and his looks like he wants to fucking eat Wyatt alive so at least he’s not alone in this and that helps a little.

“You just love to go from zero to one hundred, don’t you?” Flynn observes. It’s a fairly innocuous statement, but his palm flattens against Wyatt’s chest as he says it and his nails scrape over Wyatt’s nipple and Wyatt just about creams himself. “Breathe.”

Wyatt forces himself to inhale, hold it for a two count, then exhale. Flynn looks pleased at that and oh, no, he likes doing what Flynn says, he’s done for.

Flynn leans back in and kisses him and it’s so light and soft that Wyatt, for some reason, feels a sob rattling around in his chest. “Let’s get these clothes off.”

His fingers feel clumsy as he helps Flynn strip their clothes off, his hands greedy, his mouth even more so, with all the scarred, tanned skin in front of him. He has the insane urge to lick at every single bullet and knife wound on Flynn’s body, to feel the pinched, ridged pink skin against the flat of his tongue. Flynn’s an absolute map of marks and Wyatt wants to suck at each one until they’re purple from his mouth.

Flynn lets Wyatt explore for a bit, his one hand still holding onto Wyatt’s, anchoring him, while the other presses on the inside of Wyatt’s thigh until his leg is almost flush against the mattress and Flynn can slowly, deliberately roll his hips and Wyatt lets out an embarrassing moan.

Their kisses start to match the rhythm of Flynn’s thrusts, deep and a little slow, and Wyatt thinks he could possibly choke on Flynn’s tongue and he wouldn’t mind. He’s digging his free hand into the meat of Flynn’s shoulder and not so much breathing as forcefully panting, snatching inhales in between the deep, consuming plunges of Flynn’s tongue into his mouth. He’s shaking, he’s shaking, and he can’t stop, he doesn’t want to ever stop, and even the part of him that still tries to say this is wrong, this is dirty, it’s sick and perverted, even that part is kind of getting off on this in a twisted way.

His eyes sting a little because he hates that he can’t get his old man’s voice out of his head. _He hit you?_ Wyatt was asked earlier today, and he can’t believe it’s written that plain on his face, his self-loathing and inability to embrace himself and his discomfort. The first time he kissed a guy, on his first tour, he’d thrown up twenty minutes later, knees shaking, and he’d wanted to rip his own tongue out, tear off his own lips, to get rid of the way they’d burned with sense memory.

“I got you,” Flynn whispers, the words rough and smeared along the side of Wyatt’s mouth. “You can have this, I’ve got you.”

Those moments when Flynn was gone and Wyatt thought he might be fighting his way through a bunch of goons just to find a dead man are seared into his chest like a fucking cattle brand, and yet he’s not the one doing the comforting here. Flynn’s the one, Flynn’s always the one—protecting everyone else, listening to everyone else, comforting everyone else, and Wyatt would give his left arm to know some way he could pay it back, do the same for Flynn, but he’s shit at that whole thing so maybe he’ll just stick to pointing his gun at any Rittenhouse dick who thinks they can so much as give Flynn a dirty look.

And this. He can do this. He might never have had sex with a guy before, never fucked Flynn before, but he knows when someone’s enjoying sex and when they’re faking it (Jess, towards the end, was about fifty-fifty). Flynn’s biting into Wyatt’s bottom lip and tightening his fingers around Wyatt’s hand, in Wyatt’s thigh, and his eyelids are fluttering and Wyatt wraps his leg up around Flynn’s waist and oh fuck, _fuck_ , that’s when both of them grunt and it goes from really fucking good to _holy shit_.

Flynn’s—Flynn’s fucking thick, definitely a bit above average, although Wyatt doesn’t have a lot of room for comparison because all that internalized homophobia meant he mastered the art of not even glancing at other men’s dicks in locker rooms, and Wyatt’s a little (okay, a lot) fucking terrified but also Flynn slides along his burning hot skin and Wyatt wants him to just fucking slide inside. “Can you… can we…”

He arches his back, twists his hips a little, and Flynn’s cock slides right against his entrance for a second and Wyatt lets out a gut-punch of a whine. Flynn’s eyes are burning, his mouth even more so, a forest fire fed into Wyatt’s mouth. “Let’s work up to that,” Flynn murmurs. “It’s called breaking you in, not breaking you.”

That suggests a next time, and oh, yes, yes please Wyatt wants a next time. This was supposed to be just a one time thing but he’s been so fucking alone and so has Flynn and both of them are trying to be respectful so neither of them are so much as dipping a toe into the water with Lucy and this feels so good and Flynn’s being so good to him and Wyatt wants someone to take care of him for the love of God so if Flynn’s stupid enough to decide he wants a repeat then Wyatt’s not gonna stop him. “Please,” he gasps out, though, because he’s greedy and he wants to be fucked. He wants to be broken, so long as it’s by Flynn.

Flynn hums, then drags his cock slowly against Wyatt’s and oh holy fucking God he swears he saw stars. “Nuh-uh, sweetheart, we’re doing it just like this.”

Wyatt bites down on Flynn’s neck in retaliation, and Flynn shudders all over. So, Flynn likes it a little rough? Okay. Wyatt can do rough. He sucks, hard, scraping his teeth, moving up Flynn’s neck, and Flynn fucking _growls_ and lets go of Wyatt’s hand, his thigh, one arm managing to shove between Wyatt’s back and the mattress and hauling Wyatt up so they’re even more pressed together and—holy shit Flynn’s strong wow okay okay okay—the other grabbing a handful of Wyatt’s hair and yanking his head up so that they can kiss again and it feels so fucking good and Flynn is literally everything Wyatt’s dad would have hated and Wyatt feels vindicated, he feels like he’s on a rollercoaster except even when he drops, there’s the safety guard, he’s strapped in, Flynn’s keeping him strapped in and safe.

His mouth is just about smashed into Flynn’s, the only thing louder than the slick sound of their fucking is his heartbeat in his ears, and he can’t tell if he’s wrapped around Flynn or if Flynn’s wrapped around him. He doesn’t care. It’s messy as fuck and he’s high as fuck and he _doesn’t care_.

The fuse runs out, the spark hits the barrel.

Dynamite.

Wyatt slumps down and Flynn nearly falls on top of him, rolling to the side at the last moment and narrowly avoiding smacking their heads together. It means Flynn’s arm falls across Wyatt’s waist, keeping him anchored.

Wyatt stares up at the ceiling for a blink. He wants to turn his face, wants to bury it into the crook of Flynn’s neck and breathe him in and pretend that he doesn’t have to get up in the morning and pretend he’s okay, that he actually can live with himself and the mistakes he’s made, that he knows who he is as a person.

But he’s not sure if that would be… he doesn’t know what the rules are. This isn’t just a one night stand, they’re not strangers who met at a bar or a party. But it’s not the start of some epic romance either, they haven’t been pining over each other Shakespeare style.

Flynn’s hand comes up to cup Wyatt’s cheek, as he did at the kitchen table. He turns his face, until they’re looking at each other. Flynn looks… he looks like maybe he’s feeling about as broken as Wyatt does.

Wyatt thinks about Lucy, about what it takes to lose a family and launch a one-man war on the people who took them. He thinks about being in a small prison cell, he thinks about how no matter the nationality the army’s not the best place to be if you like men—whether you like women as well or not—and he thinks about how Flynn’s always taking care of the rest of them.

He tucks his face into Flynn’s neck and wraps his arm around him and tentatively, like Flynn might bite him for it, strokes his hand through Flynn’s hair.

The tension seems to melt out of Flynn and he holds Wyatt a little tighter in response. His hand strokes up and down Wyatt’s back. “You good there?”

He wants Flynn to call him _sweetheart_ again. The ‘honey’ earlier was light, teasing, a joke. That was… something else.

“I’m good.”

Wyatt figures they can clean up the mess in the morning. And deal with people potentially seeing Flynn walk out of his bedroom in the morning… in the morning.

Wyatt sleeps better than he has since Hedy’s.


	2. 3.5 Million Volts

To say Wyatt hasn’t been able to sleep is an understatement.

It’s been 48 hours of hell, if you ask him. Starting with when he was pacing up and down the hallway trying to get up the courage to knock on Flynn’s door. He’s… he’d gotten used to sleeping with someone else in his bed again, after Jess came back. And then the month in Montana he doesn’t really count because none of them got good sleep and it was crappy and cramped and cold. And then Flynn slept over after Stonewall and it just felt so… safe, Flynn’s tall and warm and solid and Wyatt slept in the same damn position all night without moving and woke up actually feeling rested for once, and so he’d thought maybe, y’know, just once more—

Then Lucy kissed him, drunk and crying and upset, and that all went out the window.

He’s pretty sure she came from Flynn’s room, and it’s not hard to put the pieces together after that. Flynn’s not going to let Lucy in when she’s drunk like this, any more than Wyatt would. Wyatt’s aware he’s made some shit moves in his time but that’s not one of them and he’s come to realize that when you stack up their souls on the scales, Flynn’s is the one that comes out the lighter.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s the little, teeny, tiny revelation about why Lucy was drunk, namely she’s directly descended from good ol’ David Rittenhouse on her mom’s side, and then Flynn, who apparently asked her at some point about her keeping secrets—Wyatt’s not entirely sure what’s happened on that front, something about Roanoke—is understandably upset about being lied to and now _he’s_ fucked off and Rufus is trying to get him back and Wyatt’s had a dying kid on his hands that he’s been trying to save for the last twelve-ish hours while having tons of fun and dandy flashbacks to Afghanistan and Lucy’s inconsolable and won’t talk to him and he had to give her a couple sleeping pills just to get her to rest…

Yeah. It’s been 48 hours that he is so glad he will never, ever, even with time travel, have to experience ever again.

He drains some more coffee—it’s his… tenth? Cup? Anyway. He drains some more coffee and sits next to Denise and prepares to wait for Rufus to get back with Flynn.

Because he will get back with Flynn.

He has to.

Wyatt’s chest goes horribly tight and cold whenever he considers the other possibilities. He’s not sure which is worse: Flynn dying, or Flynn just refusing to return. Sure, he’s angry at Lucy right now. Wyatt would be angry but he is literally the last person who can judge anyone else for keeping secrets, but he can admit Flynn’s got a right to be upset. But Lucy’s just one person. Flynn and Rufus are friends now, right? And Flynn and Jiya have some kind of weird parent-child sort of thingy going on, or so Wyatt guesses, given their interactions in Montana. And Flynn… he and Flynn… they…

They’re.

Wyatt downs another cup of coffee, black, just so he can focus on the bitterness of it. Flynn wouldn’t just—he knows Flynn is in love with Lucy, hell, Wyatt’s in love with Lucy too, and he’s ready to give Jess up, give her the divorce so long as she’s safe and okay and his child is safe and okay—but just because Flynn might not be in love with him doesn’t mean Flynn—that meant something between them, right? The other night?

The coffee tastes like shit, which is good because that’s about how he feels.

“Do you think Flynn’s coming back?” Denise asks.

It’s a hell of a fucking question and Wyatt half-wonders if she read his mind. But he can’t voice all his fears to Denise. After all the bed hopping that’s been going on the last thing she’ll want to hear is oh hey, boss, by the way, after fucking Lucy and my wife I’ve now sort of fucked Flynn too, hope that’s not a problem. “He was pretty damn pissed the last time we saw him. I want to say yes, but I don’t know.”

Because the thing is, he sees Flynn’s point. Even if he’s not sure he’s got the courage himself to pull the trigger knowing it’ll ruin the life of the woman he loves.

“You don’t think there’s any chance he’d turn on us again?”

For a second, Wyatt thinks he must’ve heard her wrong. But when he looks up at her, Denise is waiting expectantly for an answer.

…to say he goes off at her might. Be an understatement. But he’s angry, he’s—he’s _furious_. After all Flynn’s done and the crap Flynn’s put up with, after Wyatt’s screw ups and Wyatt’s fighting, after Lucy’s betrayal and Rufus’s quips and Denise keeping him on a short leash, after their mess ups and pathetic attempts at mounting a rebellion, after all Flynn has endured—to say that he—

Flynn was fighting Rittenhouse long before any of them were. He would never betray them. And if he does go off on his own? Wyatt thinks something fragile in him, something he didn’t even know was there, might crack and shatter at the thought but goddamn, he wouldn’t blame the guy. Not after how he’s been treated.

Maybe his voice cracks a little, or something flickers in his eyes, but Denise’s voice is a little too weighted as she says, “You care about him?”

Wyatt clears his throat. Fumbles. Comes up with an excuse that’s technically true but not quite true enough.

_You care about him?_

God, yes. In a way he can’t dare name.

He does sleep, because he’s close to crashing. But the bed feels cold and empty and far too big.

 

* * *

 

Flynn completely ignores Denise as she tries to give him some—some fucking trite, bullshit, welcome back that he knows she doesn’t mean.

He came back for one reason, and one reason only: Rufus and Jiya.

“We need you,” Rufus said. “C’mon, man, I need you, Jiya needs you. She’ll never say it but she really cares about you, you made her laugh in Montana when nobody else could, you tell her fuckin’ Croatian bedtime stories I mean c’mon, Flynn. You’re my best friend.”

“Wyatt’s your best friend.”

“Wyatt was my best friend until he was really fucking selfish, Flynn, please. Come on. Jiya lost one dad, don’t make me go back and tell her she lost another.”

So he came back.

But he’s not dealing with Agent Hypocrisy so he ignores her and heads straight for the shower, banging the door shut. So what if he wakes up everyone else? They had a nice long sleep while he was off trying to actually get shit done, trying to actually end this and save all of their asses.

He stands under the spray for a few minutes, just… doing nothing.

He didn’t know it was possible to feel like this.

Loss, he knows. He’s really fucking aware of loss. Matej, Lorena, Iris, his mother. He knows loss.

But betrayal?

The worst betrayals so far were Anthony and Emma. Those had hurt. But he’d never… he wasn’t…

He loves Lucy. Loves her with all the passion and doom of a dying star, flaring bright and burning in his chest, blinding him from the inside out. Lucy, his savior. Lucy, who told him that maybe God led him to her. Lucy, who insisted she could save his soul.

And she kept this from him.

She promised, she _promised_ him—

The bathroom door opens.

Flynn grabs the shampoo so that it looks like he was doing something other than brooding. If it’s Lucy, this is an underhanded way to get him to talk to her. If it’s Denise, he doesn’t care if it’s awkward as fuck, he will yell at her while buck naked if that’s what it takes. If it’s Mason—why the hell would it be Mason, anyway?

It’s none of those.

Wyatt walks up slowly, like he’s not sure Flynn’s actually there. “Rufus told me you were back.”

Flynn sets the shampoo down and gets a good look at him. “You look like Hell.”

Wyatt shrugs. “Could say the same about you.”

He hadn’t even thought about Wyatt in his anger. Probably because thinking about Wyatt is a dangerous game right now.

There’s only so many pieces a man can tear his heart into before there’s nothing left.

“Lucy’s not really talking to anyone,” Wyatt continues.

Flynn turns away. “I don’t want to talk about—”

“You’re angry.”

He whirls back around. Wyatt doesn’t even flinch, keeps staring defiantly into Flynn’s eyes. “You’re goddamn right I’m angry. She lied to us, to all of us, but especially—I asked her, Wyatt, I asked her if she was keeping anything from me. I gave her chance after chance and she never—she promised me there was nothing, she _lied_. And I almost—I would have destroyed her life, erased her from existence, and I wouldn’t even have known what I’d done until it was too late.”

“And you’re not going to take that anger out on her, are you?” Wyatt challenges. “You never do. You redirect it. You trap Rufus and me in a murder house, you yell, you wall yourself off but you never really let it out because you’re still in love with her.”

“And what the fuck does it matter to you?” Flynn snarls, something sharp like claws rendering his chest, each breath a stab.

Wyatt shoves him, actually manages to catch him off-balance and send him back a few steps, and then yanks his shirt off and throws it to the side like it’s a glass and he wants to shatter it. “You can’t bottle it up, so come at me.”

“I’m not—”

“Come at me.” Wyatt’s not backing down, he’s outright glaring.

“Like you care, Logan. You’re in love with her too.”

“And?” Wyatt kicks his sweats to the side, steps under the water, his chest heaving like fire’s blazing in it. “She’s not the only one who’d be upset if you never made it back, jackass, there are better ways to get out your anger so fucking come at me, huh? Come at me and don’t _fucking_ —” He shoves at Flynn again but this time Flynn’s prepared, he doesn’t move, catches Wyatt’s wrists. “—just run off like none of us will care, you _asshole_ —”

“It’s not like you came after me.” He’s squeezing Wyatt’s wrists and it must hurt but he can’t make himself stop and Wyatt’s not even trying to get away.

“Because I had Lucy in a fucking walking coma and a kid bleeding out under my hands and three people asking questions I couldn’t answer, someone had to hold down the fucking fort.” Wyatt yanks at Flynn’s hold now, but it only succeeds in bringing them closer. “And y’know what maybe it’s best that I didn’t.”

“Why, because you’d landed yourself in jail once already?”

“No, because this would’ve gotten us fucking killed in 1775,” Wyatt snaps, and then he kisses him.

Flynn’s surprised, and yet not surprised at all. It’s as much of a snarl as a kiss and he drops one of Wyatt’s wrists, wraps an arm around his lower back and hauls Wyatt up against him, kissing back as their teeth clash and water gets in their mouths until he gets the right angle and Wyatt makes an annoyed, desperate noise and then he sort of forgets about everything else for the next minute or two.

He doesn’t know what Lucy and Wyatt’s night together was like. He suspects, if Wyatt was in charge during it, that it was a bit lackluster. But when he gets Wyatt turned around and pressed up against the tiled wall and Wyatt fucking _submits_ , then it’s a hell of a ride and Flynn doesn’t want to get off the rollercoaster any time soon. Wyatt’s pliant and eager and goes where Flynn leads and makes desperate little movements and noises and clings to Flynn and it’s perfect.

“Didn’t know you cared, Logan,” he growls when they finally break apart for a good gasp of air. He can feel Wyatt hard against his hip, as if Flynn needed any more of a clue.

Wyatt thumps him on the chest. “You want to be angry, be angry at me, all right? But don’t—don’t you fucking dare run off. We need you. So c’mon. You want to be angry? Good, get angry, get angry at me.”

He is angry, he is so very fucking angry, but he is not going to take it out on Wyatt, he is not going to hurt Wyatt. “You’re playing a dangerous game and I’m not sure you even know how to play it.”

“Then teach me the rules,” Wyatt hisses, defiant, his air falling into his eyes, two spots of color high up on his cheeks.

This is not how he wanted to do this. He wasn’t even sure Wyatt wanted—anything, after that one night, and he definitely didn’t know if Wyatt would want more than what they’d done. But when he had thought about it, and he’s thought about it, because he’s weak and Wyatt’s here and Lucy might not love him back but Wyatt is trusting and willing and doing something dangerous to Flynn’s chest, he’d pictured it being a lot softer and slower, taking his time, learning Wyatt right because first times are always a bit awkward and always hurt a bit at first and he’s not going to be that wham bam thank you ma’am asshole.

But Wyatt smashes their mouths together again, licks in, claws at the back of Flynn’s shoulders, and Flynn is really, really fucking angry and pent up and wired and every other word he can think of and it’s sure as hell not going away and he needs to get his head in the game for when Rittenhouse next jumps…

He pulls back and Wyatt whines, only to grunt in surprise when Flynn flips him around, pressing him face-first into the tile.

“Rule number one,” Flynn growls, his mouth right at Wyatt’s ear, his hand snaking down between Wyatt’s legs, finding him hard and hot and aching. Wyatt arches into the touch, presses his ass into Flynn’s cock, groans like it’s his fucking salvation or something. “If something hurts? You fucking tell me. I’m not here for the sadism.”

Wyatt huffs. “I’m not gonna lie back and think of bald eagles,” he snaps. “If I don’t like it, I’ll tell you.”

Flynn can’t help but laugh at that, tucking his face into Wyatt’s neck. Wyatt elbows him. “All right, all right, can we get on with it?”

“If that’s your attitude towards sex I feel sorry for Jessica.”

“You actually want me to want you? Because you’re doing a good job of ending that possibility.”

“Am I?” Flynn inquires, squeezing Wyatt’s cock still in his hand. Wyatt makes a wonderfully strangled noise. “Because you still seem pretty interested to me.”

Wyatt grinds back against him. “Pot, meet kettle.”

Flynn drags his hand up Wyatt’s chest, nails scaping over a nipple, to grasp Wyatt’s throat and force his head to tip back. Wyatt can’t be a smartass when Flynn’s tongue is in his mouth, after all.

Wyatt makes an absolutely wrecked sound when Flynn gets a firmer grip on his throat, and oh, if that doesn’t make Flynn shudder a little. “Kinkier than I thought, Logan,” he murmurs, the words shaped against Wyatt’s mouth.

“Shut up and fuck me,” Wyatt shoots back, the words coming out a lot breathier than he’d probably intended.

Flynn’s cock jerks and he knows Wyatt can feel that, especially when Wyatt chuckles like he’s won something. That kind of sass is just not going to stand. Flynn squeezes his cock again and Wyatt gives a choked moan. Better.

“Then spread your legs,” he growls.

Wyatt does as he’s told immediately, and that’s when Flynn realizes he’s about to be the world’s biggest asshat and slide his fingers down into Wyatt’s ass without any goddamn lube.

Fuck.

He looks around. Shampoo? No fucking way. Soap? Yeah, right.

Oh, hey, Jiya’s body lotion.

That’ll work.

Flynn idly wonders if he’s going to hell for using this and makes a mental note to make Jiya breakfast or something as a thank you, grabs the bottle, and slicks up.

He kisses just behind Wyatt’s ear. “Rule number two, keep breathing. You sure about this?”

“If you’d rather hit up the punching bag…”

Fuck that. Wyatt’s got a point, he needs to work out this anger, and he wants a connection, he wants to know that someone cares, someone actually fucking values him, and he doesn’t want sweet or soft or whatever he’s been hoping for from Lucy he wants bitten lips and bruises and claw marks, and he wants submission, he wants to be in control, needs it as everything else spins out of orbit and he would never take control with Lucy, would never want to, but with Wyatt, Wyatt who scratches and growls but bends and opens so sweetly, so easily…

Okay, yeah. Maybe he needs this more than he likes to admit.

Flynn kisses him, slides his fingers down, spreads Wyatt open, fucks his tongue into Wyatt’s mouth, gives him a taste of what’s coming as he starts working the tip of his finger inside. Wyatt bucks, claws at the tile, yelps into Flynn’s mouth. Flynn’s not being as slow as he should, maybe not as gentle as he should, but Wyatt’s not telling him to stop and he’s breathing deep, Flynn can feel his fluttering pulse under his fingers—

“More,” Wyatt gasps out, presses into Flynn’s mouth. “C’mon, I’m not gonna break, you gonna tickle me or fuck me, Garcia?”

The use of his first name makes something in Flynn snap and he shoves another finger in, curls the both of them, and Wyatt fucking jerks like he’s been electrocuted. “Watch your fucking mouth, Wyatt.”

“I think you like it,” Wyatt replies, breathless, chest heaving, frantic. “I think you like my—my mouth, you sure like my ass—”

Flynn searches, probes—finds the spot that makes Wyatt nearly fall to the shower floor. Flynn gets his arm around Wyatt’s waist, keeping him standing, and Wyatt groans and shoves himself back onto Flynn’s fingers. He could make Wyatt come just like this, new and inexperienced as Wyatt is, just have him writhing on two fingers until he fucking paints the tiled walls, and it’s a tempting idea, it’s really goddamn tempting, but Wyatt hasn’t cried uncle and Flynn wants inside him, wants to bury himself in until he forgets the heartbreak that’s lurking outside the bathroom door.

“If you give me the clap…” Wyatt mutters as Flynn pulls his fingers out.

“And they say romance is dead,” Flynn notes, helping Wyatt get into a better position. “You should be a phone sex operator with that kind of dirty talk.”

“Would you rather I said oh, yeah, you’re so big, spank me?” Wyatt shoots back.

Flynn thinks someone needs a little goddamn discipline and lightly smacks Wyatt’s ass without thinking. Wyatt yelps, then glares at Flynn over his shoulder, his face bright red. Flynn grins. “Oh, you liked that.”

“Shut up.”

“You _liked_ that.”

“Shut _up_.”

Flynn does it again and Wyatt moans before he can stop himself, then glares angrily into space like he’s mentally berating himself.

Flynn kisses up Wyatt’s spine, his hands stroking Wyatt’s sides, soothing him, lulling him back into pliancy. He grabs the lotion, gets himself slick—strokes himself a few times to take the edge off because he can’t actually believe this is happening, this thing he wouldn’t even let himself properly daydream about—and then he’s slowly pushing inside.

Wyatt makes a noise and panic floods him. He was too rough, he was too fast, he should’ve—

Flynn pauses, forces himself to breathe. “Wyatt. Rule number one.”

“’M okay,” Wyatt pants. “Just—just gimme a second.”

“I’m not going to hurt you just because I’m pissed.”

“No, you’re going to fuck me because you’re pissed,” Wyatt snaps. His head hands down between his arms, his back a tight coil, and Flynn kisses the ridge of his shoulder, the side of his neck, stroking Wyatt’s cock languidly to help him feel good.

“Okay,” Wyatt whispers. “Okay, okay, I’m good, I want it, c’mon.”

“You sure?”

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Wyatt growls, and fucking shoves himself back onto Flynn’s cock.

Flynn nearly loses his shit as he’s enveloped in blindingly tight heat for the first time in—in four years, Jesus, it’s been four years—and he has to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from blowing his load. It’s embarrassing enough but understandable when you’re a teenager but when you’re in your 40s…

Wyatt’s babbling quietly, swearing, muttering things like _holy mother of fuck_ , squirming as he tries to use Flynn’s cock to find that bright electric spot again, and oh, he should’ve known Wyatt would be the greedy type.

It occurs to Flynn that while he’s been telling everyone to be honest with him, to take him at his word, he hasn’t been taking Wyatt up on his.

So he grips Wyatt’s hips, sets his teeth to the knobs of Wyatt’s spine, and fucks him.

Wyatt muffles a yell in the meat of his upper arm, sucking a bruise into his own skin as he whimpers and twists his hips. When Flynn finds his prostate Wyatt actually leaves a bite mark in his arm and Flynn works an arm around Wyatt’s waist, burying himself inside, sealing them together, the water still cascading down on them and here, oddly enough, is where he feels safe, where he feels in control, with Wyatt demanding everything Flynn has and taking it gladly and letting Flynn literally fuck his anger out and he suddenly wishes like anything he could see Wyatt’s face properly as he shudders and jerks—

He’d feel selfish, fucking so rough and coming so fast, if Wyatt wasn’t losing his goddamn mind and sagging boneless in Flynn’s arms. Flynn takes a few steps back, finds the other wall, leans against it, takes Wyatt’s weight as he slides out of him and Wyatt gets an arm around Flynn’s neck and kisses him, deep and sloppy, and Flynn’s still angry but he’s not insane with it, clawing the walls with it, and if nothing else he’s now tired instead of wound up and something almost like peace settles around them.

“You’re loud,” Flynn notes.

Wyatt’s cheeks are pink, his eyes glazed and bright. “You’re quiet.”

Flynn snorts. To his sex-addled brain that almost sounded profound. They both need a bed, stat.

 Wyatt presses a sucking kiss to Flynn’s jaw. “You got a right to be angry,” he murmurs. “Just don’t… you wouldn’t’ve just been walking out on Lucy, y’know? You get… like that… you come to me instead. Least I can do, after all the shit I pulled on you.”

“This isn’t a transaction, Wyatt, you’re not working off a debt.”

“I know.” It's just two words but it sounds like so much more. Flynn vaguely remembers thinking the first time they touched each other like this that it wasn't just the usual kind of one night stand but it wasn't anything profound, either, and it only now hits him—a pact in Pasadena, a month in Montana where he spent more time with Wyatt hunting and fetching firewood than he spent with anyone else, Wyatt falling off a horse and into his arms, Wyatt frantic and searching for him, getting him free of his chains, Wyatt vulnerable and scared and trusting him—that he was terribly, stupidly wrong about that.

Because it seems he always has one more piece of his heart ready to give.

Flynn feels a little like shit for being so fast, so rough, but Wyatt seems more than content, pressing into Flynn like an oversized puppy.

He’s placing down an open container of kerosene and setting a box of matches next to it, but he says, “my room or yours?” and Wyatt replies, “yours this time.”

Wyatt’s a heavy weight on top of him in bed but he needs that, needs an anchor, and he lets that weight drag him down into a few hours of blissful nothing.

 

* * *

 

It’s been a shit show since Wyatt was jolted awake by the fucking alarm.

Flynn wasn’t there—Wyatt vaguely remembers Flynn muttering something about getting a midnight snack and slipping away—and when Wyatt throws on some clothes and hurries to the kitchen, everyone else is already assembled.

Nikola Tesla. At least Flynn and Rufus are getting a chance to geek out. Wyatt hopes, desperately hopes, that Lucy and Flynn will work things out once they’re alone but it’s clearly only gotten worse by the time they all reunite.

And then of course Lucy and Rufus each strap themselves in and give him a fucking heart attack, because that’s always fun, and then—and _then_ —

He’s not leaving Flynn behind a second time. There’s no bleeding kid, and no Lucy to protect. He’s not leaving.

The equipment is proving how very flammable it is. Emma’s still got a gun on them.

Wyatt keeps his aim steady. He’s not leaving Flynn.

Flynn’s voice is a whip crack, but Wyatt thinks he hears a tremor in it at the end. “Get out of here, Wyatt!”

Wyatt shakes his head, clenches his jaw. No. Flynn’s not the expendable one around here. He’s hurt everyone he’s ever cared about, abandoned them in one way or another, but this, this he knows how to do. How to be a soldier, how to stick by someone’s side in a firefight. And it’s no longer a game of avoidance as it is a game of ignoring, with the words writ large and in such bold colors, but he’ll keep ignoring as long as he can and lay his heart on the line the only way he knows how, with gun powder and blood. He’s not going, he’s never going, to leave Flynn to rot alone again.

Flynn’s eyes dart to him, and God even knows what Wyatt’s face looks like right now, he’s a little scared about what truths might be blazing on there, but just that crack in Flynn’s composure is enough of an opportunity: Emma kicks out a window and clambers free.

They run, firing, hitting her—where, Wyatt’s not sure—firing at the Mothership, if they can just damage it enough, just enough, if they—

She gets away.

Flynn wipes at his mouth. Wyatt can see his hand shaking. “Son of a bitch.”

They were so goddamn close. So close. It makes him want to strangle something, to set fire to something, to kick, to scream. “Where the hell did Tesla go?”

“I look like I have any damn idea? Probably decided we were all crazy, used whatever he was building for Emma to escape—somewhere. Good to know he got an authentic time travel experience out of all of this.”

Wyatt nods, awkwardness settling around his shoulders as it hits him that they’re now alone, with no distractions—and he kind of showed his hand back there.

Flynn looks at him for a moment. Like he’s sizing him up. Wyatt clears his throat. “C’mon, we gotta find Lucy and Rufus.”

Flynn grabs his wrist before he can get far. “Wyatt. That thing could’ve blown.”

“It didn’t.” Wyatt glares at him. He’s not having this conversation. “You’re the only one around here allowed to make sacrifices, is that it?”

“You—I appreciate you having my back but… Wyatt.”

“I’m not allowed to care? Is that what you’re telling me?”

Flynn yanks him in and his hand grabs Wyatt’s left arm, thumbs the bullet scar. “There’s only so many lucky breaks you get.”

“Guess I gotta get my licks in while I can,” Wyatt counters, and he takes the risk, falls off the cliff, kisses Flynn.

Flynn growls, almost like he’s offended, but he kisses back, long and slow, and to hell with anyone who might stumble down this alley and lose their late 19th century shit. Flynn yanks himself back, or his mouth, anyway, but he’s got his arms around Wyatt now and he’s gripping like Wyatt’s his fucking lifejacket and Wyatt counts it as a fucking victory. “I lose people, Wyatt. That’s how it works. Do you understand that?”

“And you’re not allowed to keep feeling alone. Lucy hurt you. Hell, I hurt everyone. But I’m fixing that. And I’m not letting you be alone in this anymore.” He holds onto Flynn’s shirt so tightly he thinks he’s in danger of tearing something.

“Easy soldier,” Flynn murmurs. “Don’t go crying around my neck, now.” His tone is soft, almost fond.

“Don’t push it, cowboy,” Wyatt replies. It comes out far more like a whisper than he’d intended.

He’s well aware that he’s a stopover for Flynn, that Flynn’s heart has always belonged to Lucy, and Wyatt will never blame him for that. Especially not when he still loves Lucy, the flame to his pathetic moth. But he’ll be a good stopover. He promises. He’ll be good this time.

Third go round’s the charm, right? Jess, Lucy… now Flynn.

“You agree, then?” he asks. His lips brush against Flynn’s as he speaks. “Stop being a self-sacrificing bastard for two seconds?”

“Two seconds,” Flynn replies. “That’s not a lot of time.”

“Haven’t you heard? We have a time machine. That’s all the time in the world.”

And Flynn, God bless, actually smiles.


	3. São Paulo

“He told us to jump,” Rufus says.

Wyatt’s stomach drops out.

Rufus keeps talking but Wyatt’s already unbuckling, even as Lucy shakes and shakes and—no. No, this is not happening, this is _not_ happening—

“No. We aren’t doing this. Stop it, open the door—” He’ll take on Emma, he’ll take her on instead, take him, not Flynn, not one more person, Rittenhouse won’t take one more person—

Rufus presses the launch levers.

 

* * *

 

There’s only one thing Flynn regrets.

He told Lucy. He told her, and he’s kissed her, just the once but it’s enough, more than enough, he will hold the memory of that kiss in his heart for the rest of his life, for however long that lasts.

He doubts it’ll be long.

He got to tell her, and he got to kiss her—but he never told—

_I love you._

He never told Wyatt.

_Haven’t you heard? We have a time machine. That’s all the time in the world._

So much for that.

But he won’t talk.

Temple raises the gun and he has just that one, just that one regret.

_Stop being a self-sacrificing bastard for two seconds._

_I love you._

Just the one.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt doesn’t expect her to say it back. It hurts, to have her just say _I know_ when he says it one last time, meaning it, choosing her.

There’s not really a lot of time to explain that he’s choosing Flynn and her, that he wants both of them—there’s never any time, is there? Never any goddamn time.

He doesn’t deserve her love anyway. He just wants her to know. Because he’ll do anything to get Flynn back, even if that means—even if—

He goes.

Temple is dead—someone shot him, he’s guessing Emma. Mothership’s gone, fuck, but that’s not his problem right now. His goal is to get to Flynn.

The whole place is eerily empty.

A strange tinny sound rings in his ears and his vision blurs and he staggers. Something—something’s wrong, something—

He grips the wall, nearly hurls. Something’s wrong, something—something’s wrong—

He staggers down the corridor. His ears still ring although the world stabilizes again. Flynn, he has to get to Flynn, he has to…

There’s a door, to what looks like an isolation chamber of some kind. Locked, by pretty heavy security.

Worth a shot.

He shoves—no give.

Well fuck if he’s letting a locked door of all things stand in his fucking way. “Oh, to hell with this.” He fires, over and over, probably more times than he needs to, just like he fired into Temple, that bastard, that bastard who’s been after them who’s hurt Lucy and who’s hurt Flynn, been going after Flynn this whole time been after _Flynn_ —

He shoves the door open and is met with nothing but blackness.

Fuck.

He has to look through the scope of his rifle to see anything, and then it’s just all fuzzy green. There’s no one here, he can’t see anything…

Wait, no, there is something. There’s a blue light up ahead.

“Flynn?” he whispers.

There’s some kind of… what even is that? It’s some kind of… it looks like a… a gyroscope, that’s the word, and there’s…

Oh God there’s someone strapped in the middle.

“Garcia!” He yells, he doesn’t care that he yells, who the hell’s gonna hear him?

The gyroscope spins, and he can see—he can see—

The sound that rips out of him isn’t human. Or at least it doesn’t feel human. It doesn’t even feel like it comes from him. He staggers back against the wall…

It doesn’t feel real. The world is spinning again, and he wonders if that was what he felt back in the outer hallway, if somehow they are linked like that, that they can feel when one of them goes…

Mic, the mic, he has to—he might throw up—he has to—they shot him in the head the bastards just shot him in the _head_ —

“I got visual on Flynn.”

He closes his eyes. He swallows. Tries to breathe.

His voice still cracks when he speaks.

“He’s down.”

Wyatt switches off the mic. Drops the gun.

He doesn’t need it anymore.

Denise can’t see him but even if she did, he doesn’t care. He staggers over, finds a way to stop the stupid fucking contraption, God knows what they did to Flynn before they— _fuck_.

Flynn’s heavy, he’s so fucking heavy, but Wyatt’s going to get him down, he’s not going to leave him here, he’s not going to _leave_ him.

God, this is like Jess died, only so much worse. Holding the corpse of the person he loves instead of just seeing them in the morgue is so, so much worse.

He strokes Flynn’s hair, feels the hot tears sliding down his face, his vision blurring. “I’m probably getting blood and—fuck, brains—on this outfit,” he blurts out. “Denise is gonna kill me.” His voice is cracking and he’s not even sure why he’s talking out loud. Flynn can’t hear him. “But it won’t be the first time, y’know, my whole unit once, and then—they wouldn’t let me hold Jess, y’know, they just kept her on the slab and I couldn’t touch her—Fuck, Garcia, you couldn’t’ve… couldn’t’ve been a stubborn bastard and kept them talking for another hour? Couldn’t’ve kept yourself fucking alive for just… for just one more…”

His throat closes up and he can’t get the words out.

“Hey. Hey, here’s the thing.” He kind of combs over Flynn’s hair, as if that’ll hide the mess on the side of his skull. “Here’s the thing, I’m so, I’m so bad at this, I’m so very bad at this…” His voice cracks again. “Where’s my daughter with an injection when you need it, right? But um… the timing’s not great but I wanted to tell you…” He shakes his head. God, Flynn’s heavy in his arms. Wyatt’s dragging him out, though. He’s going to drag him out if it takes all fucking night.

Because they have time. They have time enough for that.

He presses his forehead to Flynn’s. “I love you,” he whispers. “That—that thing was what Stanley was strapped to, wasn’t it, huh? Hey? He could connect to all those timelines? So if you could—if somewhere you’re still alive and you can hear me, hey, I love you, okay? I love you and—and Lucy loves you, I know it, and you gotta—you gotta just know that.”

It hits him suddenly that Flynn’s body is still warm.

That’s when he starts laughing hysterically, and that’s when Denise comes over the comm and demands to know what’s going on, and yells and yells and he can’t stop and he can’t breathe and then somehow Denise is there, somehow, and he can’t let go of Flynn or he’ll go cold, Denise he’ll go _cold_ , he can’t go cold, Denise, and Denise gently pries his hands away and says I know, I know, I know, and he doesn’t even know if he’s still holding Flynn or not anymore because the weight is still in his arms and it’s always going to be in his arms. He’s always going to feel that weight.

 

* * *

 

Flynn isn’t sure… what he’s supposed to do, here.

Apparently he died. He… died in another timeline.

Or so Jiya says, anyway.

It all sits like a stone in his chest. Knowing that he died. Knowing that the fight is over, that they have to be prepared for Rittenhouse just in case, that the war might not be entirely over, but… but that he can finally breathe and that means he can finally look at his grief and his loss and his family and process it.

The other truth sits like a stone in his chest too.

The truth about what Lucy said to him in São Paulo. The truth he’s kept inside this whole time. The one he thought might have changed, the truth he thought he’d lost or hadn’t earned in this timeline, the truth that he knows, now, still rings like a bell.

Lucy loves him.

He can’t—he can’t be what she needs, he needs—he needs space, to process, to really think about it. He loves her, he loves her so much, he climbed onto the fucking time machine and let Emma go for her but loving someone isn’t just a feeling for them, it’s making choices, it’s looking after them and doing what you know is right for them and he can’t—he can’t be what she needs.

He can’t be what Wyatt needs, either.

They all gather in the diner, so Jiya can show off her ring, and they can catch each other up. He’s not all that surprised that Lucy and Wyatt aren’t sure what to do with their lives either.

He hopes they’ll figure it out. Knows that they will.

They all finish eating, and Jiya kisses him on the cheek and he kisses her on the forehead and tries not to cry knowing that she trusts him this much, wants him in her life like this. He hugs Rufus, and then Lucy hugs him and his heart thumps so hard in his chest he’s sure she can hear it.

He loves her so much, dear God, but he can’t tell her. That’s not something he can burden her with because she’ll expect them to be together and he can’t do that, not yet.

Wyatt and Lucy hug, and she kisses him on the cheek, and then it’s just him and Wyatt.

Ah. Fuck.

“Hey.” Wyatt swallows as they walk out to their cars—Flynn can see his profile in the streetlights. “So. You uh. You really need space or do you… or would you like a buddy?”

And there’s the third stone in his chest.

“Wyatt, you—” _Wyatt and Denise infiltrated Rittenhouse_. “—I never, I fled for my life and then I went right on to fight Rittenhouse and I never had time to really… think about or process…”

He looks down at his hand. At the wedding ring still on it.

“I want to move on.” Oh, God, it feels like betrayal to say it out loud. “But I need time to actually think about what that means.”

“You died,” Wyatt croaks. “You died and I can’t even remember but—if we infiltrated—I would’ve been the one who—the one who—”

He grabs Wyatt before he can stop himself or overthink it, pulling him in, wrapping his arms around his shoulders as Wyatt buries his face in Flynn’s neck, clinging, clinging tight.

“Rittenhouse could still come back,” Wyatt whispers. “They could still come back…”

“We’re fine. We’ll be ready when they do. Denise is putting things into place, so is Mason. We’ll be prepared.” It won’t be like last time. Or the time before that.

The next words are so quiet Flynn can barely hear them. “What?” he asks, because he needs it repeated. Needs confirmation.

“I love you,” Wyatt whispers, his lips pressed against the skin of Flynn’s neck, the words imprinted there. “And if you—if you have to go, then—you can go but I’m—I’m here. Okay? For whatever it’s worth. I’m here.”

“Waiting for me like some kind of maiden in a war novel?” Flynn replies dryly.

Wyatt laughs softly. “Sure. If you want to put it that way.”

He pulls back, looks up at Flynn. “But I mean it. I mean I know if you want—if you want just Lucy, then that’s fine, I get it…” His eyes drop down to the pavement.

Flynn cups Wyatt’s cheek in his hand, guiding his face back up so Wyatt has to look in Flynn’s eyes again. “I’ll try not to leave you waiting too long.”

He kisses him softly, once, takes Wyatt’s hand, squeezes hard, feels his own wedding ring on his finger.

When he’s ready to take it off, he’ll come back.

He pulls away, before he lets himself get weak and drags Wyatt to one of their cars and sees how loud Wyatt can get before people start calling the cops.

“You better not,” Wyatt tells him, and then he does something Flynn knows Wyatt hasn’t done with anyone else he’s said he loves.

Wyatt lets go.

He lets Flynn walk away.

And Flynn doesn’t let himself look back.


End file.
